Hello,
Today I'm proud to release Rack 0.3.
= Rack, a modular Ruby webserver interface
Rack provides a minimal, modular and adaptable interface for developing
web applications in Ruby. By wrapping HTTP requests and responses in
the simplest way possible, it unifies and distills the API for web
servers, web frameworks, and software in between (the so-called
middleware) into a single method call.
The exact details of this are described in the Rack specification,
which all Rack applications should conform to.
== Supported web servers
The included *handlers* connect all kinds of web servers to Rack:
* Mongrel
* Mongrel/Swiftcore (require it before requiring rack)
* WEBrick
* FCGI
* CGI
* SCGI
* LiteSpeed
These web servers include Rack handlers in their distributions:
* Ebb
* Fuzed
* Thin
Any valid Rack app will run the same on all these handlers, without
changing anything.
== Supported web frameworks
The included *adapters* connect Rack with existing Ruby web frameworks:
* Camping
These frameworks include Rack adapters in their distributions:
* Coset
* Halcyon
* Maveric
* Merb
* Racktools::SimpleApplication
* Ramaze
* Sinatra
* Vintage
Ruby on Rails can be run with the adapter included with Thin, which
will be merged into a later Rack version.
Current links to these projects can be found at
http://ramaze.net/#other-frameworks
== Available middleware
Between the server and the framework, Rack can be customized to your
applications needs using middleware, for example:
* Rack::URLMap, to route to multiple applications inside the same process.
* Rack::CommonLogger, for creating Apache-style logfiles.
* Rack::ShowException, for catching unhandled exceptions and
presenting them in a nice and helpful way with clickable backtrace.
* Rack::File, for serving static files.
* ...many others!
All these components use the same interface, which is described in
detail in the Rack specification. You can choose to use them exactly
in the way you want.
== Convenience
If you want to develop outside of existing frameworks, implement your
own ones, or develop middleware, Rack provides many helpers to create
Rack applications quickly and without doing the same web stuff all
over:
* Rack::Request, which also provides query string parsing and
multipart handling.
* Rack::Response, for convenient generation of HTTP replies and
cookie handling.
* Rack::MockRequest and Rack::MockResponse for efficient and quick
testing of Rack application without real HTTP round-trips.
== rackup
rackup is a useful tool for running Rack applications, which uses the
Rack::Builder DSL to configure middleware and build up applications
easily.
rackup automatically figures out the environment it is run in, and
runs your application as FastCGI, CGI, or standalone with Mongrel or
WEBrick---all from the same configuration.
== Where can I get it?
You can download Rack 0.3 at
http://chneukirchen.org/releases/rack-0.3.0.tar.gzhttp://rubyforge.org/projects/rack
Alternatively, you can checkout from the development repository with:
darcs get http://chneukirchen.org/repos/rack
(Patches using "darcs send" are most welcome.)
== Installing with RubyGems
A Gem of Rack is available. You can install it with:
gem install rack
I also provide a local mirror of the gems (and development snapshots)
at my site:
gem install rack --source http://chneukirchen.org/releases/gems
== History
* March 3rd, 2007: First public release 0.1.
* May 16th, 2007: Second public release 0.2.
* HTTP Basic authentication.
* Cookie Sessions.
* Static file handler.
* Improved Rack::Request.
* Improved Rack::Response.
* Added Rack::ShowStatus, for better default error messages.
* Bug fixes in the Camping adapter.
* Removed Rails adapter, was too alpha.
* February 26th, 2008: Third public release 0.3.
* LiteSpeed handler, by Adrian Madrid.
* SCGI handler, by Jeremy Evans.
* Pool sessions, by blink.
* OpenID authentication, by blink.
* :Port and :File options for opening FastCGI sockets, by blink.
* Last-Modified HTTP header for Rack::File, by blink.
* Rack::Builder#use now accepts blocks, by Corey Jewett.
(See example/protectedlobster.ru)
* HTTP status 201 can contain a Content-Type and a body now.
* Many bugfixes, especially related to Cookie handling.
== Contact
Please mail bugs, suggestions and patches to
<mailto:chneukirchen / gmail.com>.
Darcs repository ("darcs send" is welcome for patches):
http://chneukirchen.org/repos/rack
You are also welcome to join the #rack channel on irc.freenode.net.
== Thanks to
* Michael Fellinger, for the helpful discussion, bugfixes and a better
Rack::Request interface.
* Adrian Madrid, for the LiteSpeed handler.
* Christoffer Sawicki, for the Rails adapter.
* Tim Fletcher, for the HTTP authentication code.
* Luc Heinrich for the Cookie sessions, the static file handler and bugfixes.
* blink for the Pool sessions, OpenID support, various tweaks, and bugreports.
* Armin Ronacher, for the logo and racktools.
* Aredridel, for bug fixing.
* Gary Wright, for proposing a better Rack::Response interface.
* Jonathan Buch, for improvements regarding Rack::Response.
* Armin Röhrl, for tracking down bugs in the Cookie generator.
* Alexander Kellett for testing the Gem and reviewing the announce.
* Marcus Rückert, for help with configuring and debugging lighttpd.
* The WSGI team for the well-done and documented work they've done and
Rack builds up on.
== Copyright
Copyright (C) 2007, 2008 Christian Neukirchen <http://purl.org/net/chneukirchen>
Rack is freely distributable under the terms of an MIT-style license.
== Links
Rack:: <http://rack.rubyforge.org/>
Rack's Rubyforge project:: <http://rubyforge.org/projects/rack>
Christian Neukirchen:: <http://chneukirchen.org/>
Happy hacking and have a nice day,
Christian Neukirchen
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fedf79e0fb9a41b2c442b982fa0546d2fd3ebec0 rack-0.3.0.gem